4/03/2012

The costal areas of the Abraxas region are rife with great swamps, such as the notorious Black Mangal and the vast Neverglade of Heliodor. Treacherous places, all, they are haunted by many dangerous beings, flesh, spirit, and in between. Below is one of the more sinister:

Mandrakes are cruel hunters and ambushers that grow from a kind of wetland rhizome into a lurching, roughly humanoid being (6-7') with a toothsome, mudskipper-like face, a dragging tail, and layers of rough, fibrous skin. From sloughed-off layers of their body, Mandrakes fashion tough ropes that they carry twisted on spool-like wooden shields, and use to capture and strangle foes. Unnervingly stealthy, Mandrakes surprise on a 1-3 and attack with their ropes at +4 if they surprise, dealing an automatic 1-6 damage per round unless the rope, which has AC 6 and requires 3HP damage in one blow to cut, is severed. Mandrakes prefer to strangle, but can resort to a nasty bite with sharp, woody teeth, if cornered. If they overwhelm their opponents, they prefer to bind their prey and drown them alive, and Mandrake treasure is usually found underwater, still on the body of a victim slowly bloating in the water in preparation for later eating.

Mandrakes are silent while hunting, but have been observed to communicate with a rustling noise from their throats resembling a chuckle. Mandrake ropes have extraordinary strength and lightness, twice that of a silk rope for the same weight if intact, but quickly ravel if cut; they are worth 1 GP per foot and a given rope will be 1d6x25 feet in length. The core of a Mandrake is tough, but has a delicately spicy flavor if cooked slowly in oil or fat, and in Abraxas some cooks will pay up to a gold piece per pound for mandrake core, with a given mandrake yielding 1 pound per hit point of usable core.